#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

#this is just a tricky way to make a hash table
#
#translate something to something screams hash
#table - we can get this from a file or wherever,
#or just make a %TranslateTable declaration statement..
#
#I didn't think that was the point here...

my %TranslateTable =
      map { my ($char, $hmtl) = split}
      split /\n/, <<'END';
Á     &Aacute
á     &aacute
É     &Eacute
é     &eacute
Í     &Iacute
í     &iacute
Ñ     &Ntilde
ñ     &ntilde
Ó     &Oacute
ó     &oacute
Ú     &Uacute
ú     &uacute
Ü     &Uuml
ü     &uuml
¿     &iquest
¡     &iexcl
END

my $s = "El supersÁnico de los Indi ";
my $xlated = fix_utf8($s);

print "$s\n";
print "****translated = $xlated\n";

## this can be done in fewer lines, and could be faster,
## but I didn't think that was the point either....
##
## this is simple and straightforward.
## maybe I misunderstood the problem, but even so
## there maybe something that you can use
## sorry, that I don't speak this language, perhaps
## there is a funny goof, if so laugh! OK!

sub fix_utf8
{
   my $in_string = shift;
   my $newstring ="";
   foreach my $char (split (//,$in_string) )
   {
      $char = $TranslateTable{$char} if $TranslateTable{$char};
      $newstring .= $char;
   }
  return $newstring;
}

__END__
######### prints 
El supersÁnico de los Indi 
****translated = El supers&Aacutenico de los Indi